Happy Christmas to all of you observing it & a very, very happy holidays to those of you who aren’t. The holidays make December one of my favorite months, especially because Christmas is the perfect excuse for my entire family & close friends to gather around over a huge feast & partake in gift-giving. Seeing my huge family during the holidays makes the day so enjoyable & something I look forward to every year. The food, the company, the drinks, the scents, the desserts, & the fun, there’s so much sensory overload, how can you not be overwhelmed with joy? Speaking of senses, did you know that scent is one of our 5 senses that is closely tied with memory? I’m sure most of you already know that, so let’s drive this point even further: Holiday Diffusers. Make your home smell exactly like the happy holidays with essential oils, vodka (or rubbing alcohol), a glass bottle, & diffuser reeds.

There are so many recipes for fantastic smelling DIY diffusers, so if you feel like giving someone a personal, yet light present, homemade diffusers are the way to go. Get all up in their olfactory senses with these wonderful combinations. You can find essential oils, bottles, & reeds from Amazon, Etsy, local craft stores/fairs, & more! Tie a ribbon or twine around the neck of the bottle with a sprig of rosemary or branch of fake red berries for extra holiday feels. I get my essential oils from NOW Foods. Their pretty bottle labels really help with their sales, truth be told. Dat typography doe!

Sweet Holiday

Minty Delight

10 drops of peppermint EO

5 drops of pine needle EO

5 drops of cedarwood EO

5 drops of rosemary EO

5 drops of lemon EO

3 drops of clove EO

2 parts vodka

1 part water

Shake or stir ingredients well in a vase. Sometimes 5 drops of an essential oil isn’t enough for you to really smell much, depending on the bottle, so you can double or even triple up the recipe, but maintain the 2:1 ratio of vodka-to-water. Always use a pure vodka that’s 80 proof or rubbing alcohol. No need to break out the Grey Goose, just use the cheapest vodka you can find (I get mine for $4-5). The usage of vodka allows the scents to permeate & linger in the air for much longer than pure water. Why do you suppose your perfume or cologne’s base is made with alcohol? Science, biaaaatch! Use glass vases that are larger at the bottom & narrower at the top like the one pictured. The narrow neck allows for the diffusers to last longer due to a decreased surface area for evaporation. In other words, small hole = less evaporation = longer lasting diffusers!

If you’re wondering how in the heck are diffusers a “personal” gift, it’s really quite simple: everyone has a personality that can be translatable in fragrance. Does that sound like I spent too many hours hugging trees or something? Yeah whatever, the point is simple: some people are more floral than fruity or more musky than minty. So, if you gift someone an essential oil diffuser, make sure you write them a card or tell them that you made them a floral diffuser to match their favorite floral fragrances or their very feminine personality. Fruity essential oils for those extra bubbly & sweet. Woodsy, vanilla (you can use the baking vanilla with alcohol content; no such thing as a vanilla essential oil), & cinnamon for that manly man (or woman!). Too expensive of an investment? That’s okay, check out my favorite website, Hello Natural, for 7 affordable ways to make your house smell amazing. Worried about other uses for essential oils? Don’t even fret. You can add them to lotion, shampoo, base oils like almond or apricot, & apply them as you see fit. Essential oils have so many wonderful healing properties, such as adding a drop of eucalyptus to hot water & inhaling it to clear your sinuses. Google that ish!

Also, this is my new layout! It was made possible by Dynamik Website Builder, Genesis, & WordPress (obviiii). I’ll talk more about it in my next post (& new recipes!). So much work went into this, but I’m so thankful for discovering Dynamik – made coding exponentially easier. No need to figure out how to code responsive web design when it does it for you.

Comments

This is such a wonderful, last-minute gift idea and the customization options are almost limitless. It’s definitely one of the most personalized gifts that you can give someone. I love this new layout – it’s so pretty. Also, I’ll have to get the supplies to try one of these scents. 🙂

Thank you, Jessica! Some of the essential oils are much more expensive than others, so I tend to order the smallest size (1 oz) if possible to save money. Peppermint oil is one of my personal favorites as it can be used similarly to Icy Hot to soothe moderate external pain (back aches, muscle soreness, etc). You’d have to add 3 drops of it in some lotion, mix it up, & apply where needed. Clove oil is great for toothaches too if you ever have any.

Merry Christmas, Tiff! I’m loving the new look. 😀 I just looked at the Dynamik Website Builder. Looks very nifty! I’d love to poke at the code to see how it works. 😛

The Minty Delight scent sounds absolutely wonderful. I’m definitely trying it! You know, I was thinking of your stuffed peppers the other day, haha. I haven’t had the chance to try cooking it. I’ll let you know how it goes. 😀

I love it! It’s a great website builder for wordpress themes. It runs off genesis though so buying genesis & buying dynamik will cost over $100 now that the prices have gone up. Once you get the hang of it though, it becomes pretty easy to figure out. Being able to edit my coding while my website shifts accordingly has saved me a lot of time!

You were? Haha well they’re very versatile so use it as a base recipe. Hope you enjoy whatever you make!

Thanks! They’re a great gift, just a little difficult to wrap, so I’d suggest small vials to keep the essential oils in & then telling someone to fill up the bottle with 2 parts vodka & 1 part water. Hope you get inspired!

I’m totally digging your new layout! I like how you incorporate your beautiful creations in your header.

The holidays are great because it’s that one time of the year where everyone can get together and relax from the stressful and/or hardworking year. I like the simplicity of the diffuser. It’s fun to make and people love it (unless they like some totally different smell)! But noting that you picked a floral fragrance for their feminine personality would get you by.

Thanks, Nancy! I’ve got some tweaking to do with the layout, so if you see anything funky, please let me know. I’m going to add text to the photos so people know you can click on the banner. Maybe even a faster slider would be beneficial too.

I agree! They’re definitely fun to make & unless someone doesn’t like the smell or has a difficult time smelling anything at all, they’re not so great.

Thanks! I’m completely surprised by your preference for musky scents! I would’ve guessed floral or fruity or even spicy spices (because you’re Italian after all & your recipes are always so full of spices & flavor!).

I hope you had a great Christmas day! I like the idea of DIY diffusers as gifts 🙂 I hadn’t thought of it before! The citrus recipe especially sounds nice since I’m a big fan of fruity and citrus scents. I like your explanations on the vodka and vase shape too. I learned something new!

Love the new layout! It looks great! I really like the logo up in the header 🙂 I feel like it fits your site!

Nice new layout Tiff!! Very clean and cute :3
Mmm I adore citrus smells. I still have a little perfume bottle I bought in Naples with a lemony scent in it. Brings back lovely memories 🙂 And Dynamik sounds really good too!
And happy new year in advance! May 2015 be even greater for you 🙂
Xx Jessy

I like this theme! c: I feel like changing mine, but with my current happenings, I don’t have the time, so I may hire Georgie a third time because of that, and also because I really like her style/working with her. (And because I can let her loose and she come out with something amazing, thus meaning I don’t have to know what I want.)

Anyways… my cousin works with essential oils! Honestly, I wondered how else I could use them, and I didn’t think of this. I’ve read they can help with allergies, so the pine/maple/cedar/etc. ones are ones I’ve wanted to try, but I didn’t think of this method, so… I’m working on creating wax melt recipes with them, though! But it’s really awesome what essential oils can do — with beeswax (or soy wax, if you’re not allergic to soy) and some essential oils, you can make lip balm like Chapstick/Lip Ice/etc. And there are recipes for perfumes, lotions, shampoos, etc., too, to make with them…and I think some can go into food? Yeah.

When you say 2 parts/1 part, approx. is that for the recipe? Like, would it be 1/2 cup vodka, 1/4 cup water? Those always throw me off. 😡

Thanks, Liz! I personally loved your “Something Fishy” theme the most, probably because I’m obsessed with shades of blue/teal/celadon/the like. I didn’t know that Georgina was designing your themes for you to be honest. Thought she was so busy she didn’t have time for it haha. I suppose with the right amount of $ she would though. Makes sense really!

Most people use essential oils for aromatherapy since it is their primary usage, so they’d add it in their candles like you mentioned or in diffusers. I don’t think many people make their own diffusers, but there are lots of electronic diffusers out there that you can add a single drop of EO in that works marvelously. Just to give you a taste of what I’ve used mine for:

If you’re into natural products like I am, you’ll notice that many of the ingredients are essential oils so their usage is limitless! I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d help out those with allergies, but I don’t have any experience with that. The EO that I get are food grade so you could use them in food, but they must be really diluted.

As for the instructions, you have to be careful with the ratios because alcohol evaporates really quickly. You could use a 1:1 ratio (that’s what 1 part A, 1 part B means, it’s a ratio) of alcohol to water, but you’d have to double or triple (if you use a 1:2 alcohol to water ratio) the amount of EO to pack a powerful punch. So any time you see a recipe (especially cocktails) call for parts, it’s just a ratio. You’re correct that if you wanted to make a huge diffuser,1/2 cup vodka & 1/4 cup water is a 2:1 ratio.

1 part vodka & 3 parts cranberry juice for example is a 1:3 ratio so it could be anywhere from 1 shot of vodka & 3 shots of cranberry juice or 1 cup vodka & 3 cups juice. Hope that was helpful!